Planet of Adventure Omnibus (49 page)

Zarfo ignored
the lack of affability. “Where then are you bound?”

“Lake Falas;
where else?” declared the oldest Xar. “Our business is done; as usual we were
cheated. We are anxious to return to the swamps.”

“Excellent.
This gentleman and his two friends need transportation to a point in your
general direction. They asked me whether they should offer to pay; I said, ‘Nonsense!
The Xars are princes of generosity-’ “

“Hold!” the
Xar called sharply. “I have at least three remarks to make. First, our raft is
crowded. Second, we are generous unless we lose sequins in the process. Third,
these two nondescripts have a reckless and desperate air about them, not at all
reassuring. Is this the third?” The reference was to Traz, who had arrived on
the scene. “A mere lad but no less dubious for all that.”

Another Xar
spoke. “Two further questions: How much can they pay? Where do they wish to go?”

Reith,
considering the uncomfortably scant supply of sequins in his pouch, said, “A
hundred sequins is all we can offer; and we want to be taken to Tusa Tala.”

The Xars
threw up their hands in outrage. “Tusa Tala? A thousand miles northwest! We
head southeast to Lake Falas! A hundred sequins? Is this a joke? Mountebanks!
Off with all of you,„

Zarfo
swaggered threateningly forward. “A mountebank, you call me? Were it not Balul
Zac Ag, the ‘unnatural dream time,’ I would tweak all of your ludicrously long
noses!”

The Xars made
spitting sounds between their teeth, climbed aboard the raft and departed.

Zarfo stared
after the departing raft. He heaved a sigh. “In this case, failure ... Well,
all may not prove so churlish. In the sky comes another craft; we shall put the
proposal to those aboard, or at an extremity, render them drunk and borrow the
vehicle. A handsome craft, that. Surely-”

Anacho gave a
startled outcry. “A Dirdir sky-car! Already they are here! Away to concealment,
for our very lives!”

He started to
dart away. Reith seized his arm. “Don’t run; do you want them to identify us so
quickly?” To Zarfo: “Where shall we hide?”

“In the
ale-house storeroom but never forget that this is Balul Zac Ag! The Dirdir
would never dare violence!”

“Bah,”
sneered Anacho. “What do they know of your customs, or care?”

“I will
explain to them,” declared Zarfo. He led the three to a shed beside the
alehouse, ushered them within. Through a crack in the plank Reith watched the
Dirdir sky-car settle into the compound. On sudden thought he turned to Traz,
felt over his garments, and in vast dismay discovered a black disc.

“Quick,” said
Anacho. “Give it here.” He left the shed, went into the ale-house. A minute
later he returned. “An old Lokhar departing for his cottage now carries the
tell-tale.” He went to a crack, peered out toward the field. “Dirdir, sure
enough! As always when sport is to be had!”

The sky-car
lay quiet: a craft different from any Reith had seen heretofore, the product of
a sure and sophisticated technology. Five Dirdir stepped to the ground:
impressive creatures, harsh, mercurial, decisive. They stood approximately at
human height, and moved with sinister quickness, like lizards on a hot day.
Their dermal surfaces suggested polished bone; their crania raised into sharp
blade-like crests, with incandescent antennae streaming back at either side.
The contours of the faces were oddly human, with deep eye-sockets, the scalp
crests descending to suggest nasal ridges. They half-hopped, half-loped, like
leopards walking erect; it was not hard to see in them the wild creatures which
had hunted the hot plains of Sibol.

Three persons
approached the Dirdir: the false Lokhar, the Dugbo girl, a man in nondescript
gray garments. The Dirdir spoke with the three for several minutes, then
brought forth instruments, which they pointed in different directions. Anacho
hissed: “They locate their tell-tales. And the old Lokhar in the alehouse still
dawdles over his pot!”

“No matter,”
said Reith. “As well in the ale-house as anywhere else.”

The Dirdir
approached the ale-house, moving with their curious half-loping stride. Behind
came the three spies.

The old
Lokhar chose this moment to lurch from the alehouse. The Dirdir inspected him
in puzzlement, and approached by great leaps. The Lokhar drew back in alarm. “What
have we here? Dirdir? Don’t interfere with me!”

The Dirdir
spoke in sibilant lisping voices which suggested the absence of a larynx. “Do
you know a man called Adam Reith?”

“Indeed not!
Stand aside!”

Zarfo thrust
himself forward. “Adam Reith, you say? What of him?”

“Where is he?”

“Why do you
ask?”

The false
Lokhar stepped forward, muttered to the Dirdir. The Dirdir said. “You know Adam
Reith well?”

“Not well. If
you have money for him, leave it with me; he would have wanted it so.”

“Where is he?”

Zarfo looked
out across the sky. “You saw the sky-raft which departed as you arrived?”

“Yes.”

“It might be
that he and his friends were aboard.”

“Who claims
this to be true?”

“Not I,” said
Zarfo. “I offer only the suggestion.”

“Nor I,” said
the old Lokhar who had carried the telltale.

“What is the
direction?”

“Pah! You are
the great trackers,” sneered Zarfo. “Why ask us poor innocents?”

The Dirdir
retreated across the compound in long strides. The skycar darted off into the
air.

Zarfo
confronted the three Dirdir agents, his big face twisted into a malevolent
grin. “So here you are in Smargash, violating our laws. Do you not know this is
Balul Zac Ag?”

“We committed
no violence,” stated the false Lokhar, “but merely did our work.”

“Dirty work,
conducive to violence! You shall all be flogged. Where are the constables? I
give these three into custody!”

The three
agents were hustled away, protesting and crying and making demands.

Zarfo came to
the shed. “Best that you leave at once. The Dirdir will not delay long.” He
pointed across the compound. “The wagon to the west is ready to depart.”

“Where does
it take us?”

“Out to the
highland rim. Beyond lie the chasms! A grim territory. But if you remain here,
you will be taken by the Dirdir. Balul Zac Ag or no.”

Reith looked
around the compound, at the dusty stone and timber structures of Smargash, at
the black and white Lokhars, at the shabby old inn. Here had been the single
interim of peace and security he had known on Tschai; now events were forcing
him once more into the unknown. In a hollow voice he said, “We need fifteen
minutes to collect our gear.”

Anacho said
in a dismal voice, “The situation does not accord with my hopes ... But I must
make the best of it. Tschai is a world of anguish.”

ZARFO CAME TO
the inn with white Seraf robes and spine helmets. “Wear these; conceivably you
may win an additional hour or two. Hurry-the wagon is at the point of
departure.”

“One moment.”
Reith surveyed the compound. “There may be other spies, watching our every
move.”

“Well, then,
by the back lane. After all, we cannot anticipate every contingency.”

Reith made no
further comments; Zarfo was becoming peevish and anxious to get them out of
Smargash, no matter in what direction.

Silently,
each man thinking his own thoughts, they went to the motorwagon terminus. Zarfo
told them: “Say nothing to anyone; pretend to meditate: that is the way of the
Serafs. At sundown face the east and utter a loud cry: ‘Ah-oo-cha!’ No one
knows what it means but that is the Seraf way. If pressed, state that you come
to buy essences. So then: aboard the wagon! May you avoid the Dirdir and
succeed in all your future undertakings. And if not, remember that death comes
only once!”

“Thank you
for the consolation,” said Reith.

The
motor-wagon trundled off on its eight tall wheels: away from Smargash, out over
the plain toward the west. Reith, Anacho and Traz sat alone in the aft
passenger cubicle.

Anacho was
pessimistic in regard to their chances. “The Dirdir will not be confused for
long. The difficulties will only make them keen. Do you know that the Dirdir
young are like beasts? They must be tamed, then trained and educated. The
Dirdir spirit remains feral; hunting is a lust.”

“Self-preservation
is no less a lust with me,” Reith stated.

The sun sank
behind the rim; gray-brown dust settled over the landscape. The wagon paused at
a dismal little village; the passengers stretched their legs, drank brackish
water raised from a well, haggled for buns with a withered old crone who asked
outrageous prices and laughed wildly at counter-proposals.

The wagon
proceeded, leaving the old woman muttering beside her tray of buns.

The dusk
faded through umber into darkness. From across the wasteland came a weird
hooting: the call of night-hounds. In the east rose the pink moon Az, followed
presently by blue Braz. Ahead loomed a jut of rock: an ancient volcanic neck,
so Reith surmised. From the summit glowed three wan yellow lights. Looking up
through his scanscope
[vii]
Reith saw the ruins of a castle ... He dozed for an hour and awoke to find the
wagon rolling through soft sand beside a river. On the opposite bank psillas
stood outlined against the moonlit sky. Presently they passed a many-cupolaed
manor-house, apparently uninhabited and in the process of decay.

Half an hour
later, at midnight, the wagon rumbled into the compound of a large village, to
halt for the right. The passengers composed themselves to sleep on their
benches or on top of the wagon.

Carina 4269
finally rose: a cool amber disc only gradually dispelling the morning mist.
Vendors brought trays of pickled meats, pastes, strips of boiled bark, toasted
pilgrim pod, from which the passengers made a breakfast.

The wagon
proceeded to the west toward the Rim Mountains, now jutting high into the sky.
Reith occasionally swept the sky with his scanscope but discovered no signs of
pursuit.

“Too early
yet,” said Anacho cheerlessly. “Never fear; it will come.”

At noon the
wagon reached Siadz, the terminus: a dozen stone huts surrounding a cistern.

To Reith’s
intense disgust, no transportation, neither motorwagon nor leap-horse, could be
hired for transportation onward across the rim.

“Do you know
what lies beyond?” demanded the elder of the village. “The chasms.”

“Is there no
trail, no trade-route?”

“Who would
enter the chasms, for trade or otherwise? What sort of folk are you?”

“Serafs,”
said Anacho. “We explore for asofa root.”

“Ah, the
Serafs and their perfumes. I have heard tales. Well, don’t play your immortal
antics on us; we are a simple people. In any event, there is no asofa among the
chasms; only cripthorn, spumet and rack-belly.”

“Nevertheless,
we will go forth to search.”

“Go then.
There is said to be an ancient road somewhere to the north, but I know of none
who have seen it.”

“What people
inhabit the chasms? Are they friendly?”

“‘People’? A
joke. A few pysantillas, red cors under every rock, bodebirds. If you are
extremely unlucky you might meet a fere.”

“It seems a
dire region.”

“Aye, a
thousand miles of cataclysm. Still, who knows? Where cowards never venture,
heroes find splendor. So it may be with your perfume. Strike out to the north
and seek the ancient road to the coast. It will be no more than a mark, a
crumble. When darkness comes, make yourself secure: night-hounds range the
wastes!”

Reith said, “You
have dissuaded us; we will return east with the motorwagon.”

“Wise, wise!
Why, after all, throw away your lives, Seraf or no?”

Reith and his
companions rode the motor-wagon a mile back down the road, then inconspicuously
slid to the ground. The wagon lumbered east and presently disappeared into the
amber murk.

There was
silence about them. They stood on coarse gray soil, with here and there wisps
of salmon-colored thorn and at even greater intervals a coarse tangle of
pilgrim plant, which Reith saw with a certain glum satisfaction. “So long as we
find pilgrim plant we won’t starve.”

Traz gave a
dubious grunt. “We had best reach the mountains before dark. On the flat
night-hounds have advantage over three men.”

“I know an
even better reason for haste,” said Anacho. “The Dirdir won’t be puzzled long.”

Reith
searched the empty sky, the bleak landscape. “They might conceivably become
discouraged.”

“Never! When
thwarted they grow excited, furious with zeal.”

“We’re not
far from the mountains. We can hide in the shadow of the boulders, or in one of
the ravines.”